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" ' ARE YOU RELATED TO GOVERNOR m'KINLEY ? 



rPage 8. 



COFFEE AND REPARTEE 



BY 



JOHN KENDRICK BANGS 



ILLUSTRATED 




NEW YORK 
HARPER & BROTHERS PUBLISHERS 



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Harper's ''Black and White" Series. 

Illustrated, samo, Cloth, 50 cents each. 

WHITTIER : NOTES OF HIS LIFE AND OF HIS 

FRIENDSHIPS. By ANNIE Fields. 
GILES COREY, YEOMAN. By MARY E.AVilkins. 
COFFEE AND REPARTEE. By JOHN KendriCK BANGS. 
SEEN FROM THE SADDLE. By ISA CARRINGTON 

Cabell. 
A FAMILY CANOE TRIP. By FLORENCE WATTERS 

Snedeker. 
A LITTLE SWISS SOJOURN. By WILLIAM DEAN 

Howells. 
A LETTER OF INTRODUCTION. A Farce. By WILLIAM 

Dean Howells. 
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL. An Address. By GEORGE 

William Curtis. 
IN THE VESTIBULE LIMITED. By BRANDER MAT- 
THEWS. 
THE ALBANY DEPOT. A Farce. By WILLIAM DEAN 

Howells. 



Published by HARPER & BROTHERS, New York. 

For sale by all booksellers, or "will be sent by the publishers, 
postage prepaid, on receipt of price. 



Copyright, 1893, by Harper & Brothers. 
All rights reserved. 



TO 

F. S. M. 



ILLUSTRATIONS 



PAGE 

" ' Are you related to Governor McKinley ?' » . Frontispiece. 

Alarmed the Cook ' 5 

' What are the first symptoms of insanity? ' " . . . 13 

* Reading Webster's Dictionary ' " ^7 . 

' I stuck to the pigs ' " , . . . • 23- 

The Conspirators ^5 

Wern't your ears long enough?' " 33 

The corks popped to some purpose last night ' " . . 37 

If you could spare so little as one flame '" ... 43 

The School-master as a Cooler 47 

"' Reading the Sunday newspapers ' " 5^ 

Bobbo 55 

Wooing the Muse ^7 

" ' He gave up jokes '" 7^ 

" ' A little garden of my own, where I could raise an oc- 
casional can of tomatoes' " 7 5 

'"A hind-quarter of lamb gambolling about its native 

heath'" 77 

"' The gladsome click of the lawn-mower '" . ... 80 



You don't mean to say that you write for the pa- 
pers?'" 

" ' We wooed the self-same maid ' " 

Curing Insomnia 

" Holding his plate up to the Light " 

" ' I believe you'd blowout the gas in your bedroom ' " 
'- ' His fairy stories were told him in words of ten sylla- 
bles ' " 

" ' I thought my father a mean-spirited assassin ' " . . 
Mrs. S. brought him to the point of proposing'" , 
Hoorah!' cried the Idiot, grasping Mr. Pedagog by 
the hand ' " 




The guests at Mrs. Smithers's high-class 
boarding-house for gentlemen had assem- 
bled as usual for breakfast, and in a few 
moments Mary, the dainty waitress, en- 
tered with the steaming cofTee, the mush, 
and the rolls. 

The School-master, who, by-the-way, was 
suspected by Mrs. Smithers of having inten- 
tions, and who for that reason occupied the 
! chair nearest the lady's heart, folded up the 
morning paper, and placing it under him so 
that no one else could get it, observed, quite 
genially for him, " It was very wet yester- 
day." 

«'I didn't find it so," observed a young 
man seated half-way down the table, who 
was by common consent called the Idiot, 



because of his " views." " In fact, I was very 
dry. Curious thing, I'm always dry on rainy 
days. I am one of the kind of men who 
know that it is the part of wisdom to stay 
in when it rains, or to carry an umbrella 
when it is not possible to stay at home, or, 
having no home, like ourselves, to remain 
cooped up in stalls, or stalled up in coops, 
as you may prefer." 

"You carried an umbrella, then ?" queried 
the landlady, ignoring the Idiot's shaft at the 
size of her " elegant and airy apartments " 
with an ease born of experience. 

"Yes, madame," returned the Idiot, quite 
unconscious of what was coming. 

" Whose }" queried the lady, a sarcastic 
smile playing about her lips. 

"That I cannot say, Mrs. Smithers," re- 
plied the Idiot, serenely, " but it is the one 
you usually carry." 

" Your insinuation, sir," said the School- 
master, coming to the landlady's rescue, " is 
an unworthy one. The umbrella in ques- 
tion is mine. It has been in my possession 
for five years." 

"Then," replied the Idiot, unabashed, "it 
is time you returned it. Don't you think 



men's morals are rather lax in this matter 
!of umbrellas, Mr. Whitechoker?" he added, 
jturning from the School-master, who began 
to show signs of irritation. 

" Very," said the Minister, running his fin- 
ger about his neck to make the collar which 
had been sent home from the laundry by 
mistake set more easily—" very lax. At the, 
last Conference I attended, some person, 
forgetting his high office as a minister in 
the Church, walked off with my umbrella 
without so much as a thank you ; and it 
was embarrassing too, because the rain was 
coming down in bucketfuls." 

" What did you do ?" asked the landlady, 
sympathetically. She liked Mr. Whitechok- 
er's sermons, and, beyond this, he was a 
more profitable boarder than any of the 
others, remaining home to luncheon every 
day and having to pay extra therefor. 

" There was but one thing left for me to 
do. I took the bishop's umbrella," said Mr. 
Whitechoker, blushing slightly. 

" But you returned it, of course ?" said the 
Idiot. 

" I intended to, but I left it on the train 
on my way back home the next day," re- 



plied the clergyman, visibly embarrassed by 
the Idiot's unexpected cross-examination. 

"It's the same way with books," put in the 
Bibliomaniac, an unfortunate being whose 
love of rare first editions had brought him 
down from affluence to boarding. " Many a 
man who wouldn't steal a dollar would run' 
off with a book. I had a friend once who 
had a rare copy of Through Africa by Day- \ 
light, k was a beautiful book. Only twenty-' 
five copies printed. The margins of the : 
pages were four inches wide, and the title- 
page was rubricated ; the frontispiece was 
colored by hand, and the seventeenth page 
had one of the most amusing typographical 
errors on it — " I 

"Was there any reading- matter in the | 
book?" queried the Idiot, blowing softly on 
a hot potato that was nicely balanced on 
the end of his fork. 

"Yes, a little; but it didn't amount to 
much," returned the Bibliomaniac. " But, 
you know, it isn't as reading-matter that, 
men like myself care for books. We have 
a higher notion than that. It is as a speci- 
men of book -making that we admire a 
chaste bit of literature like Throzigh Afri- 



ca by Daylight. But, as I was saying, my 
friend had this book, and he'd extra-illus- 
trated it. He had pictures from all parts of 
the world in it, and the book had grown 
from a volume of one hundred pages to 
four volumes of two hundred pages each." 

"And it was stolen by a highly honora- 
ble friend, I suppose ?" queried the Idiot. 

" Yes, it was stolen — and my friend never 
knew by whom," said the Bibliomaniac. 

"What?" asked the Idiot, in much sur- 
prise. " Did you never confess }" 

It was very fortunate for the Idiot that 
the buckwheat cakes were brought on at 
this moment. Had there not been some 
diversion of that kind, it is certain that the 
Bibliomaniac would have assaulted him. 

"It is very kind of Mrs. Smithers, !_ 
think," said the School-master, "to provide 
us with such delightful cakes as these free 
of charge." 

" Yes," said the Idiot, helping himself to 
six cakes. " Very kind indeed, although I 
must say they are extremely economical 
from an architectural point of view — which 
is to say, they are rather fuller of pores than 
of buckwheat. I wonder whv it is," he con- 



tinued, possibly to avert the landlady's re- 
taliatory comments — *' I wonder why it is 
that porous plasters and buckwheat cakes 
are so similar in appearance ?" 

" And so widely different in their respec- 
tive effects on the system," put in a genial 
old gentleman who occasionally imbibed, 
seated next to the Idiot. 

" I fail to see the similarity between a 
buckwheat cake and a porous plaster," said 
the School-master, resolved, if possible, to 
embarrass the Idiot. 

" You don't, eh ?" replied the latter. " Then 
it is very plain, sir, that you have never eaten 
a porous plaster." 

To this the School-master could find no 
reasonable reply, and he took refuge in 
silence. Mr. Whitechoker tried to look 
severe ; the gentleman who occasionally 
imbibed smiled all over; the Bibliomaniac 
ignored the remark entirely, not having as 
yet forgiven the Idiot for his gross insinua- 
tion regarding his friend's edition de luxe 
of Through Africa by Daylight ; Mary, the 
maid, who greatly admired the Idiot, not so 
much for his idiocy as for the aristocratic 
manner in which he carried him>self, and the 



truly striking striped shirts he wore, left the 
room in a convulsion of laughter that so 
alarmed the cook below-stairs that the next 
platterful of cakes were more like tin plates 
than cakes ; and as for Mrs. Smithers, that 
worthy woman was speechless with wrath. 
But she was not paralyzed apparently, for 
reaching down into her pocket she brought 
forth a small piece of paper, on which was 
written in detail the " account due " of the 
Idiot. 

" I'd like to have this settled, sir," she 
said, with some asperity. 

" Certainly, my dear madame," replied 
the Idiot, unabashed — " certainly. Can you 
change a check for a hundred ?" 

No, Mrs. Smithers could not. 

" Then I shall have to put off paying the 
account until this evening," said the Idiot. 
" But," he added, with a glance at the 
amount of the bill, " are you related to 
Governor McKinley, Mrs. Smithers ?" 

" I am not," she returned, sharply. " My 
mother was a Partington." 

" I only asked," said the Idiot, apologeti- 
cally, " because I am very much interested 
in the subject of heredity, and you ma}' not 



know it, but you and he have each a marked 
tendency towards high-tariff bills." 

And before Mrs. Smithers could think of 
anything to say, the Idiot was on his way 
down town to help his employer lose money 
Ion Wall Street. 



II 

"Do you know, I sometimes think—" 
began the Idiot, opening and shutting the 
silver cover of his watch several times withi 
a snap, with the probable, and not alto-'- 
gether laudable, purpose of calling his^ 
landlady's attention to the fact — of which 
she was already painfully aware— that break- 
fast was fifteen minutes late. 

" Do you, really ?" interrupted the School- i 
master, looking up from his book with an i 
air of mock surprise. " I am sure I never 
should have suspected it." 

" Indeed ?" returned the . Idiot, undis- 
turbed by this reflection upon his intellect. 
" I don't really know whether that is due 
to your generally unsuspicious nature, or to 
your shortcomings as a mind-reader." 

" There are some minds," put in the land- 
lady at this point, " that are so small that 
it would certainly ruin the eyes to read 
them." 



j 



• I have seen many such," observed the 
Idiot, suavely. " Even our friend the BibH- 
omaniac at times has seemed to me to be 
very absent-minded. And that reminds 
me, Doctor," he continued, addressing him- 
self to the medical boarder. " What is the 
cause of absent-mindedness ?" 

" That," returned the Doctor, ponder- 
ously, " is a very large question. Absent- 
imindedness, generally speaking, is the result 
of the projection of the intellect into sur- 
roundings other than those which for want 
of a better term I might call the corporeally 
immediate." 

" So I have understood," said the Idiot, 
approvingly. "And is absent-mindedness 
acquired or inherent ?" 

Here the Idiot appropriated the roll of 
his neighbor. 

"That depends largely upon the case," 
replied the Doctor, nervously. " Some are 
born absent-minded, some achieve absent- 
mindedness, and some have absent-minded- 
ness thrust upon them." 

" As illustrations of which we might take, 
for instance, I suppose," said the Idiot, "the 
born idiot, the borrower, and the man who 



is knocked silly by the pole of a truck on 
Broadway." 

" Precisely," replied the Doctor, glad to 
get out of the discussion so easily. He was 
a very young doctor, and not always sure 
of himself. 

" Or," put in the School-master, " to con- 
dense our illustrations, if the Idiot would 
kindly go out upon Broadway and encoun- 
ter the truck, we should find the three com- 
bined in him." 

The landlady here laughed quite heartily, 
and handed the School -master an extra 
strong cup of cofTee. 

" There is a great deal in what you say," 
said the Idiot, without a tremor. " There 
are very few scientific phenomena that can- 
not be demonstrated in one way or another 
by my poor self. It is the exception always 
that proves the rule, and in my case you find 
a consistent converse exemplification of all 
three branches of absent-mindedness." 

" He talks well," said the Bibliomaniac, 
sotto voce, to the Minister. 

"Yes, especially when he gets hold of 
large words. I really believe he reads,"; 
replied Mr. Whitechoker. 



" I know he does," said the School-master, 
who had overheard. " I saw him reading 
Webster's Dictionary last night. I have 
noticed, however, that generally his vocab- 
ulary is largely confined to words that come 
between the letters A and F, which shows 
that as yet he has not dipped very deeply 
into the book." ^ 

"What are you murmuring about .^"queried 
the Idiot, noting the lowered tone of those 
on the other side of the table. 

"We were conversing— ahem! about—" 
began the Minister, with a despairing glance 
at the Bibliomaniac. 

" Let me say it," interrupted the Biblio- 
maniac. " You aren't used to prevarication, 
and that is what is demanded at this time. 
We were talking about— ah— about— er—" 
" Tut ! tut !" ejaculated the School-master. 
" We were only saying we thought the— er 
— the— that the—" 

" What are the first symptoms of insanity, 
Doctor.?" observed the Idiot, with a look of 
wonder at the three shuflfling boarders op- 
posite him, and turning anxiously to the 
physician. 

" I wish you wouldn't talk shop," retorted 



he Doctor, angrily. Insanity was one of 
lis weak points. 

" It's a beastly habit," said the School- 
haster, much relieved at this turn of the 
:onversation. 

" Well, perhaps you are right," returned 
he Idiot. " People do, as a rule, prefer to 
alk of things they know something about, 
md I don't blame you. Doctor, for wanting 
lo keep out of a medical discussion. I only 
.sked my last question because the behavior 
•f the Bibliomaniac and Mr. Whitechoker 
.nd the School-master for some time past 
las worried me, and I didn't know but what 
ou might work up a nice little practice 
mong us. It might not pay, but you'd 
and the experience valuable, and I think 
Linique." 

I " It is a fine thing to have a doctor right 
|n the house," said Mr. Whitechoker, kindly, 
tearing that the Doctor's manifest indigna- 
tion might get the better of him. 
i " That," returned the Idiot, " is an asser- 
tion, Mr. Whitechoker, that is both true 
and untrue. There are times when a physi- 
Ician is an ornament to a boarding-house ; 
times when he is not. For instance, on 



Wednesday morning if it had not been fo 
the surgical skill of our friend here, ou 
good landlady could never have managec 
properly to distribute the late autumr 
chicken we found upon the menu. Tall) 
one for the affirmative. On the other hand 
I must confess to considerable loss of appe- 
tite when I see the Doctor rolling his bread 
up into little pills, or measuring the vinegar 
he puts on his salad by means of a glass , 
dropper, and taking the temperature of his i 
coffee with his pocket thermometer. Nor 
do I like — and I should not have mentioned 
it save byway of illustrating my position in|i 
regard to Mr. Whitechoker's assertion—! 
nor do I like the cold, eager glitter in thej; 
Doctor's eyes as he watches me consuming,;, 
with some difficulty, I admit, the cold pastry- 
we have sei-ved up to us on Saturday morn--- 
ings under the wholly transparent a/z'as oii 
'Hot Bread.' I may have very bad taste,j. 
but, in my humble opinion, the man who 
talks shop is preferable to the one who sug- 
gests it in his eyes. Some more iced pota 
toes, Mary," he added, calmly. 

" Madame," said the Doctor, turning an 
grily to the landlady, " this is insufferable. 




READING Webster's dictionary 



You may make out my bill this morning, 
shall have to seek a home elsewhere." 

" Oh, now, Doctor !" began the landlady 
in her most pleading tone. 

" Jove !" ejaculated the Idiot. " That's j 
good idea, Doctor. I think I'll go with you 
I'm not altogether satisfied here myself, bui 
to desert so charming a company as we hav{i 
here had never occurred to me. Together; 
however, we can go forth, and perhaps find 
happiness. Shall we put on our hunting 
togs and chase the fiery, untamed hall-roonii 
to the death this morning, or shall we pui 
it off until some pleasanter day ?" \ 

" Put it off," observed the School-masteri- 
persuasively. " The Idiot was only indulg- 
ing in persiflage. Doctor. That's all. Whenj 
you have known him longer you will under-l- 
stand him better. Views are as necessary:, 
to him as sunlight to the flowers; and I 
truly think that in an asylum he would., 
prove a delightful companion." I 

"There, Doctor," said the Idiot; "that 'J 
handsome of the School-master. He couldn't 
make more of an apology if he tried. I'll 
forgive him if you will. What say you ?" ,, 

And strange to say, the Doctor, in spit^ 



f the indignation wliich still left a red tinge 
n his cheek, laughed aloud and was recon- 
iled. 

As for the School-master, he wanted to 
e angry, but he did not feel that he could 
fford his wrath, and for the first time in 
Dme months the guests went their several 
ays at peace with . each other and the 
orld. 



Ill 

There was a conspiracy in hand to em 
barrass the Idiot. The School-master am 
the Bibliomaniac had combined forces t< 
give him a taste of his own medicine. Th 
time had not yet arrived which showed th( 
Idiot at a disadvantage ; and the two board 
ers, the one proud of his learning, and th( 
other not wholly unconscious of a bookisl 
life, were distinctly tired of the triumphanl 
manner in which the Idiot always left the 
breakfast-table to their invariable discom-i 
fiture. 

It was the School-master's suggestion to 
put their tormentor into the pit he had here- 
tofore digged for them. The worthy in| 
structor of youth had of late come to see^ 
that while he was still a prime favorite with 
his landlady, he had, nevertheless, suffered 
somewhat in her estimation because of the 
apparent ease with which the Idiot had got 
the better of him on all points. It was nee-? 



J 



bssary, he thought, to rehabilitate himself, 
ind a deep-laid plot, to which the Biblio- 
naniac readily lent ear, was the result of 
ais reflections. They twain were to indulge 
In a discussion of the great story of Robert 
''^Ismere, which both were confident the 
Idiot had not read, and concerning which 
they felt assured he could not have an in- 
telligent opinion if he had read it. 
i So it happened upon this bright Sunday 
Horning that as the boarders sat them down 
:o partake of the usual " restful breakfast," 
IS the Idiot termed it, the Bibliomaniac ob- 
served : 

" I have just finished reading Robert Els- 
mere!' 

' Have you, indeed T returned the School- 
master, with apparent interest. " I trust 
you profited by it ?" 

" On the contrary," observed the Biblio- 
maniac. " My views are much unsettled 
by it." 

i " I prefer the breast of the chicken, Mrs. 
'Smithers," observed the Idiot, sending his 
plate back to the presiding genius of the 
table. " The neck of a chicken is graceful, 
but not too full of sustenance." 



" He fights shy," whispered the Bibli( 
maniac, gleefully. 

" Never mind," returned the School-ma 
ter, confidently ; " we'll land him yet." The I 
he added, aloud: "Unsettled by it.> 
fail to see how any man with beliefs tht 
are at all the result of mature conviction 
can be unsettled by the story of Elsmert 
For my part I believe/ and I have alway 
said — " 

" I never could understand why the necl 
of a chicken should be allowed on a respeo 
table table anyhow," continued the Idiot 
ignoring the controversy in which his neigh- 
bors were engaged, "unless for the puri 
pose of showing that the deceased fowl mei 
with an accidental rather than a natural 
death." | 

" In what way does the neck demonstrate 
that point.?" queried the Bibliomaniac, for 
getting the conspiracy for a moment. 

" By its twist or by its length, of course,' 
returned the Idiot. " A chicken that dies ai 
natural death does not have its neck wrung;' 
nor when the head is removed by the use; 
of a hatchet, is it likely that it will be cut 
off so close behind the e^rs that those wh 



'\ml 




I STUCK TO THE PIGS ' 



eat the chicken are confronted with foi 
inches of neck." 

"Very entertaining indeed," interpose 
the School-master; "but we are wanderin, 
from the point the Bibliomaniac and I wer 
discussing. Is or is not the story of Rober 
Elsuiere unsettling to one's beliefs } Per 
haps you can help us to decide that ques 
tion." 

" Perhaps I can," returned the Idiot 
"and perhaps not. It did not unsettle m>' 
beliefs." ' 

" But don't you think," observed the Bib- 
liomaniac, "that to certain minds the booki 
is more or less unsettling.?" 

" To that I can confidently say no. The 
certain mind knows no uncertainty," replied 
the Idiot, calmly. I 

"Very pretty indeed," said the School--- 
master, coldly. " But what was your opin- 
ion of Mrs. Ward's handling of the subject }., 
Do you think she was sufficiently realistic } 
And if so, and Elsmere weakened under the 
stress of circumstances, do you think— or 
don't you think— the production of such a 
book harmful, because— being real— it must 
of necessity be unsettling to some minds?' 



26 



" I prefer not to express an opinion c 
that subject," returned the Idiot, " becauj 
I never read Robert Els—'' 

" Never read it?" ejaculated the School 
master, a look of triumph in his eyes. 

" Why, everybody has read Elsmere tha 
pretends to have read anything," assertec 
the Bibliomaniac. 

" Of course," put in the landlady, with ; 
scornful laugh. 

"Well, I didn't," said the Idiot, non- 
chalantly. "The same ground was gone 
over two years before in Burrows's great 
story, Is It, or Is It Not? and anybody who 
ever read Clink's books on the Non-Exzstent 
as Opposed to What Is, knows where Bur- 
rows got his points. Burrows's story was ajj 
perfect marvel. I don't know how many,' 
editions it went through in England, and! 
when it was translated into French by 
Madame Tournay, it simply set the French 
wild." 

" Great Scott !" whispered the Biblioma- 
niac, desperately, " I'm afraid we've been 
barking up the wrong tree." 

"You've read Clink, I suppose.?" asked 
the Idiot, turning to the School-master 



.<Y— yes," returned the School -master, 
Hushing deeply. 

The Idiot looked surprised, and tried to 
onceal a smile by sipping his coffee from a 
ipoon. 

And Burrows ?" 

No," returned the School-master, hum- 
)ly. "I never read Burrows." 

"Well, you ought to. It's a great book, 
md it's the one Robert Elsmere is taken from 
-same ideas all through, I'm told— that's 
vhy I didn't read Elsmere. Waste of time, 
rou know. But you noticed yourself, I sup- 
Dose, that Clink's ground is the same as that 
tov^x^di'wi Elsmere r 

" No ; I only dipped lightly into Clmk, 
-eturned the School-master, with some em- 
Darrassment. 

^ " But you couldn't help noticing a sim- 
ilarity of ideas?" insisted the Idiot. 

calmly. . 

The School-master looked beseechingly 
lat the Bibliomaniac, who would have been 
Iglad to fly to his co-conspirator's assistance 
had he known how, but never having heard 
of Clink, or Burrows either, for that matter, 
he made up his mind that it was best for his 



rea 



reputation for him to stay out of the co 
troversy. 

"Very slight similarity, however," sa 
the School-master, in despair, 

" Where can I find Clink's books ?" put i 
Mr. Whitechoker, very much interested. 

The Idiot conveniently had his mout 
full of chicken at the moment, and it 
to the School- master who had also 
him that they all— the landlady included 
looked for an answer. 

"Oh, I think," returned that worthy, hes 
itatingly— " I think you'll find Clink in am 
of the public libraries." 

" What is his full name ?" persisted Mr 
Whitechoker, taking out a memorandum- 
book. 
" Horace J. Clink," said the Idiot. 
" Yes ; that's it— Horace J. Clink," echoed 
the School-master. " Very virile writer and 
a clear thinker," he added, with some nervi 
ousness. 1 

" What, if any, of his books would you! 
specially recommend ?" asked the Minister 
again. 

The Idiot had by this time risen from 
the table, and was leaving the room with 



itn* 



;e genial gentleman who occasionally im- 
bed. 

The School-master's reply was not audi- 
e. 

" I say," said the genial gentleman to the 
liot, as they passed out into the hall, " they 
dn't get much the best of you in that mat- 
r. But, tell me, who was Clink, anyhow ?" 
" Never heard of him before," returned 
le Idiot. 

'And Burrows?" 

* Same as Clink." 

'Know anything about Elsjneref chuc- 
led the genial gentleman. 

Nothing— except that it and ' Pigs in 
lover' came out at the same time, and I 
uck to the Pigs." 

And the genial gentleman who occasion- 
ly imbibed was so pleased at the plight of 
le School-master and of the Bibliomaniac 
lat he invited the Idiot up to his room, 
here the private stock was kept for just 
iich occasions, and they put in a very pleas- 
^t morning together. 



IV 

The guests were assembled as usual. Th( 
oatmeal course had been eaten in silence^ 
In the Idiot's eye there was a cold glitter a 
expectancy— a glitter that boded ill for thi 
man who should challenge him to contro- 
versial combat— and there seemed also tc 
be, judging from sundry winks passed over 
the table and kicks passed under it, an un- 
derstanding to which he and the geniai 
gentleman who occasionally imbibed werdt 
parties. j 

As the School-master sampled his coffei 
the genial gentleman who occasionally im 
bibed broke the silence. 

" I missed you at the concert last night 
Mr. Idiot," said he. 

"Yes," said the Idiot, with a caressing 
movement of the hand over his upper lip, 
" I was very sorry, but I couldn't get aroun 
last night. I had an engagement with 
number of friends at the athletic club, 



leant to have dropped you a line in the af- 

rnoon telling you about it, but I forgot it 
ntil it was too late. Was the concert a 
iiccess ?" 

' Very successful indeed. The best one, 
''). fact, we have had this season, which 
lakes me regret all the more deeply your 
bsence," returned the genial gentleman, 
'ith a suggestion of a smile playing about 
is lips. " Indeed," he added, '* it was the 
nest one I've ever seen." 

"The finest one you've what?" que- 
ied the School - master, startled at the 
erb. 

"The finest one I've ever seen," replied 
he genial gentleman. " There were only 
en performers, and really, in all my experi- 
nce as an attendant at concerts, I never 
aw such a magnificent rendering of Beet- 
loven as we had last night. I wish you 
ould have been there. It was a sight for 
Ihe gods." 

' I don't believe," said the Idiot, with a 
Uight cough that may have been intended 
.o conceal a laugh — and that may also have 
oeen the result of too many cigarettes—" I 
don't believe it could have been any more 



interesting than a game of pool I heard a 
the club." 

" It appears to me," said the Bibliomaniac 
to the School- master, "that the popping 
sounds we heard late last night in the Id- 
iot's room may have some connection with 
the present mode of speech these two gen- 
tlemen afifect." 

"Let's hear them out," returned the 
School-master, '• and then we'll take them 
into camp, as the Idiot would say." 

"I don't know about that," replied the 
genial gentleman. "I've seen a great many} 
concerts, and I've heard a great many good 1 
games of pool, but the concert last night ! 
was simply a ravishing spectacle. We had a ' 
Cuban pianist there who played the orches- , 
tration of the first act of Parsifal with sur- ^ 
prising agility. As far as I could see, he 
didn't miss a note, though it was a little an- 
noying to observe how he used the pedals." 
" Too forcibly, or how.?" queried the Idiot. 
Not forcibly enough," returned the Im- 
biber. " He tried to work them both with 
one foot. It was the only thing to mar an 
otherwise marvellous performance. The 
idea of a man trying to display Wagner 





weren't your ears long enough?' 



with two hands and one foot is irritatin 
to a musician with a trained eye." 

"I wish the Doctor would come down, 
said Mrs. Smithers, anxiously. 

"Yes," put in the School-master; " ther 
seems to be madness in our midst." 

" Well, what can you expect of a Cuban 
anyhow ?" queried the Idiot. " The Cuban 
like the Spaniard or the Italian or the Afri- 
can, hasn't the vigor which is necessary foi 
the proper comprehension and rendering of 
Wagner s music. He is by nature slow and 
indolent. If it were easier for a Spaniard 
to hop than to walk, he'd hop, and rest his 
other leg. I've known Italians whose diet 
was entirely confined to liquids, because 
they were too tired to masticate solids. It 
is the ease with which it can be absorbed , 
that makes macaroni the favorite dish of* 
the Italians, and the fondness of all Latin] 
races for wines is entirely due, I think, to^ 
the fact that wine can be swallowed with-^ 
out chewing. This indolence affects also 
their language. The Italian and the Span 
lard speak the language that comes easy- 
that is soft and dreamy ; while the Germans 
and Russians, stronger, more energetic, in 



dulge in a speech that even to us, who are 
people o^ an average amount of energy, is 
! sometimes appalling in the severity of the 
^ strain it puts upon the tongue. So, while 
I I do not wonder that your Cuban pianist 
I showed woful defects in his use of the ped- 
: als, I do wonder that, even with his sur- 
I prising agility, he had sufficient energy to 
I manipulate the keys to the satisfaction of 
so competent a witness as yourself." 

" It was too bad ; but we made up for it 
later," asserted the other. " There was a 
young girl there who gave us some of Men- 
delssohn's Songs without Words. Her ex- 
pression was simply perfect. I wouldn't have 
missed it for all the world ; and now that I 
think of it, in a few days I can let you see 
for yourself how splendid it was. We per- 
suaded her to encore the songs in the dark, 
and we got a flash-light photograph of two 
of them." 

" Oh ! then it was not on the piano-forte 
she gave them ?" said the Idiot. 

" Oh no ; all labial," returned the genial 
gentleman. 

Here Mr. Whitechoker began to look con- 
cerned, and whispered something to the 



School-master, who replied that there were 
enough others present to cope with the two 
parties to the conversation in case of a vio- 
lent outbreak. 

" I'd be very glad to see the photographs," 
replied the Idiot. " Can't I secure copies of 
them for my collection ? You know I have 
the complete rendering of ' Home, Sweet 
Home ' in kodak views, as sung by Patti. 
They are simply wonderful, and they prove^ 
what has repeatedly been said by critics, 
that, in the matter of expression, the supe- 
rior of Patti has never been seen." 

"I'll try to get them for you, though I^ 
doubt it can be done. The artist is a very 
shy young girl, and does not care to have 
her efforts given too great a publicity until 
she is ready to go into music a little more 
deeply. She is going to read the 'Moon- 
light Sonata ' to us at our next concert. 
You'd better come. I'm told her gestures 
bring out the composer's meaning in a rfian- 
ner never as yet equalled." 

" I'll be there ; thank you," returned the 
Idiot. " And the next time those fellows 
at the club are down for a pool tournament 
I want you to come up and hear them play. 



It was extraordinary last night to hear the 
balls dropping one by one — click, click, 
click — as regularly as a metronome, into 
the pockets. One of the finest shots, I am 
sorry to say, I missed." 

" How did it happen .?'* asked the Biblio- 
maniac. "Weren't your ears long enough?" 

" It was a kiss shot, and I couldn't hear 
it," returned the Idiot. 

" I think you men are crazy," said the 
School-master, unable to contain himself 
any longer. 

" So ?" observed the Idiot, calmly, "And 
how do we show our insanity ?" 

" Seeing concerts and hearing games of 
pool." 

" I take exception to your ruling," re- 
turned the Imbiber. "As my friend the Id- 
iot has frequently remarked, you have the 
peculiarity of a great many men in your 
profession, who think because they never 
happened to see or do or hear things as 
other people do, they may not be seen, 
done, or heard at all. I sazc/ the concert I 
attended last night. Our m.usical club has 
rooms next to a hospital, and we have to 
give silent concerts for fear of disturbing 



the patients ; but we are all musicians of 
sufficient education to understand by a 
glance of the eye what you would fail to 
comprehend with fourteen ears and a mi- 
crophone." 

" Very well said," put in the Idiot, with a 
scornful glance at the School-master. " And 
I literally heard the -pool tournament. I was 
dining in a room off the billiard-hall, and 
every shot that was made, with the excep- 
tion of the one I spoke of, was distinctly 
audible. You gentlemen, who think you 
know it all, wouldn't be able to supply a 
bureau of information at the rate of five 
minutes a day for an hour on a holiday. 
Let's go up-stairs," he added, turning to 
the Imbiber, " where we may discuss our 
last night's entertainment apart from this 
atmosphere of rarefied learning. It makes 
me faint." 

And the Imbiber, who was with difficulty 
keeping his lips in proper form, was glad 
enough to accept the invitation. " The corks 
popped to some purpose last night," he said, 
later on. 

"Yes," said the Idiot; "for a conspiracy 
there's nothing so helpful as popping corks." 



" When you get through with the fire, 
Mr. Pedagog," observed the Idiot, one win- 
ter's morning, noticing that the ample pro- 
portions of the School-master served as a 
screen to shut off the heat from himself 
and the genial gentleman who occasionally 
imbibed, " I wish you would let us have a 
little of it. Indeed, if you could conven- 
iently spare so little as one flame for my 
friend here and myself, we'd be much 
obliged." 

" It won't hurt you to cool off a little, 
sir," returned the School-master, without 
moving. 

" No, I am not so much afraid of the in- 
jury that may be mine as I am concerned 
for you. If that fire should melt our only 
refrigerating material, I do not know what 
our good landlady would do. Is it true, as 
the Bibliomaniac asserts, that Mrs. Smithers 
leaves all her milk and butter in your room 



1 



vernight, relying upon your coolness to 
ieep them fresh ?" 

! " I never made any such assertion, said 
he Bibliomaniac, warmly. 

" I am not used to having my word dis- 
,uted," returned the Idiot, with a wink at 
he genial old gentleman. 

" But I never said it, and I defy you to 
)rove that I said it," returned the Biblio- 
naniac, hotly. 

" You forget, sir," said the Idiot, coolly, 
' that you are the one who disputes my as- 
sertion That casts the burden of proof on 
^our shoulders. Of course if you can prove 
that you never said anything of the sort, 
[ withdraw; but if you cannot adduce 
proofs, you, having doubted my word, and 
publicly at that, need not feel hurt if I 
Idecline to accept all that you say as gos- 

"You show ridiculous heat," said the 
School-master. 

" Thank you," returned the Idiot, grace- 
fully. "And that brings us back to the 
original proposition that you would do well 
to show a little yourself." 

" Good-morning, gentlemen," said Mrs. 



Smithers, entering the room at this mo- 
ment. " It's a bright, fresh morning." 

" Like yourself," said the School-master, 
gallantly. 

"Yes," added the Idiot, with a glance at^ 
the clock, which registered 8.45 — forty-five' 
minutes after the breakfast hour — "very 
like Mrs. Smithers — rather advanced." 

To this the landlady paid no attention ; 
but the School-master could not refrain 
from saying, 

" Advanced, and therefore not backward, 
like some persons I might name." 

"Very clever," retorted the Idiot, "and 
really worth rewarding. Mrs. Smithers, 
you ought to give Mr. Pedagog a receipt 
in full for the past six months." 

" Mr. Pedagog," returned the landlady, 
severely, " is one of the gentlemen who al- 
ways have their receipts for the past six 
months." 

"Which betrays a very saving disposition," 
accorded the Idiot. " I wish I had all I'd 
received for six months. I'd be a rich 
man." 

" Would you, now ?" queried the Biblio- 
maniac. " That is interesting enough. How 



men's ideas differ on the subject of weald 
Here is the Idiot would consider himse 
rich with $150 in his pocket—" 

" Do you think he gets as much as that ? 
put in the School-master, viciously. " Fiv 
dollars a week is rather high pay for one c 
his — " 

" Very high indeed," agreed the Idiot 
" I wish I got that much. I might be able 
to hire a two-legged encyclopiedia to tel 
me everything, and have over $4.75 a week 
left to spend on opera, dress, and the poor 1 
but honest board Mrs. Smithers provides J 
if my salary was up to the $5 mark ; but 
the trouble is men do not make the fabu-- 
lous fortunes nowadays with the ease with i 
which you, Mr. Pedagog, made yours. There ; 
are, no doubt, more and greater opportuni- 
ties to-day than there were in the olden 
time, but there are also more men trying 
to take advantage of them. Labor in the 
business world is badly watered. The col- 
leges are turning out more men in a week 
nowadays than the whole country turned 
out in a year forty years ago, and the qual- 
ity IS so poor that there has been a general 
reduction of wages all along the line. Where 



. 



)es the struggler for existence come in 
iien he has to compete with the college- 
fed youth who, for fear of not getting em- 
{oyment anywhere, is willing to work for 
)thing ? People are not willing to pay for 
tiat they can get for nothing." 

I am glad to hear from your lips so com- 
ete an admission," said the School-master, 
that education is downing ignorance." 

' I am glad to know of your gladness," 
jturned the Idiot. " I didn't quite say that 
lucation was downing ignorance. I plead 
lilty to the charge of holding the belief 
at unskilled omniscience interferes very 
aterially with skilled sciolism in skilled 
iolism's efforts to make a living." 

"Then you admit your own superfici- 
ity?" asked the School-master, somewhat 
irprised by the Idiot's command of syila- 
es. 

" I admit that I do not know it all," re- 
irned the Idiot. " I prefer to go through 
[e feeling that there is yet something for 
e to learn. It seems to me far better to 
dmit this voluntarily than to have it forced 
ome upon me by circumstances, as hap- 
ened in the case of a college graduate I 



know, who speculated on Wall Street, ai 
lost the hundred dollars that were subs 
quently put to a good use by the uned: 
cated me." 

" From which you deduce that ignoram 
is better than education?" queried th 
School-master, scornfully. 

" For an omniscient," returned the Idio 
" you are singularly near-sighted. I hav 
made no such deduction. I arrive at th 
conclusion, however, that in the chase fo 
the gilded shekel the education of experi 
ence is better than the coddling of Alms 
Mater. In the satisfaction— the persona; 
satisfaction— one derives from a liberal edji 
ucation, I admit that the sons of Alma Ma^i 
ter are the better off. I never could hop^) 
to be so self-satisfied, for instance, as you' 



are. 



"No," observed the School-master; "you 
cannot raise grapes on a thistle farm. Any 
unbiassed observer looking around this ta- 
ble," he added, "and noting Mr. White- 
choker, a graduate of Yale; the Biblio- 
maniac, a son of dear old Harvard; th 
Doctor, an honor man of Williams; ou 
legal friend here, a graduate of Columbi 



I 




THE SCHOOLMASTER AS A COOLER 



—to say nothing of myself, who was gn 
uated with honors at Amherst— any v 
biassed observer seeing these, I say, a 
then seeing you, wouldn't take very'lo 
to make up his mind as to whether a m; 
is better off or not for having had a coll 
giate training." 

"There I must again dispute your asse 
tion," returned the Idiot. " The unbiass€ 
person of whom you speak would say, ' Hei 
is this gray-haired Amherst man, this bool 
loving Cambridge boy of fifty-seven yeai 
of age, the reverend graduate of Yale, claj 
of '55, and the other two learned gentleme 
of forty-nine summers each, and this poc 
ignoramus of an Idiot, whose only virtue i 
his modesty, all in the same box.' And thei 
he would ask himself, ' In what way hav- 
these sons of Amherst, Yale, Harvard, ant 
so forth, the better of the unassu'minfi 
Idiot?'" 

"The same box.?" said the Bibliomaniaei 
" What do you mean by that?" ^ 

"Just what I say," returned the Idioti 
"The same box. All boarding, all eschew- 
ing luxuries of necessity, all paying theit 
bills with difficulty, all sparsely clothed ; iiii 



ality, all keeping Lent the year through. 
Eerily,' he would say, ' the Idiot has the 
pst of it, for he is young.' " 
And leaving them chewing the cud of re- 
action, the Idiot departed. 
" I thought they were going to land you 
iat time," said the genial gentleman who 
xasionally imbibed,, later ; "but when I 
sard you use the word ' sciolism,' I knew 
Su were all right. Where did you get it?" 
" My chief got it off on me at the office 
le other day. I happened in a mad mo- 
ent to try to unload some of my original 
jbservations on him apropos of my getting 
) the office two hours late, in which it was 
ly endeavor to prove to him that the truly 
ife and consei-vative man was always slow, 
nd so apt to turn up late on occasions. 
|ie hopped about the office for a minute 
ir two, and then he informed me that I 
ms an i8-karat sciolist. I didn't know 
rhat he meant, and so I looked it up." ^ 

" And what did he mean ?" 

" He meant that I took the cake for 
,uperficiality, and I guess he was right," 
•eplied the Idiot, with a smile that was not 
iltogether mirthful. 



VI 

"Good-morning!" said the Idiot, chee 
fully, as he entered the dining-room. 

To this remark no one but the landlac 
vouchsafed a reply. " I don't think it is^ 
she said, shortly. " It's raining too hard t 
be a very good morning." 

"That reminds me," observed the Idio 
takmg his seat and helping himself copious 
ly to the hominy. "A friend of mine o 
one of the newspapers is preparing an ar 
tide on the ' Antiquity of Modern Humor, 
With your kind permission, Mrs. Smithers 
111 take down your remark and hand i 
over to Mr. Scribuler as a specimen of th( 
modern antique joke. You may not hi 
aware of the fact, but that jest is to be found 
in the rare first edition of the Ta/es of Bob- 
bo, an Italian humorist, who stole every- 
thing he wrote from the Greeks." 

" So }" queried the Bibliomaniac. " I never 
heard of Bobbo, though I had, before th 



-e thSi 

i 




READING THE SUNDAY NEWSPAPERS 



auction sale of my library, a choice copy 
the Tales of Poggio, bound in full crush 
Levant morocco, with gilt edges ; and o 
or two other Italian Joe Alillers in tree Cc 
I cannot at this moment recall their name: 
"At what period did Bobbo live?" i 
quired the School-master. 

" I don't exactly remember," returnc 
the Idiot, assisting the last potato on tl 
table over to his plate. " I don't know e; 
actly. It was subsequent to B.C., I thin 
although I may be wrong. If it was no 
you may rest assured it was prior to B.C." 
" Do you happen to know," queried th 
Bibliomaniac, " the exact date of this rar 
first edition of which you speak.?" 

"No; no one knows that," returned th 
Idiot. " And for a very good reason. I 
was printed before dates were invented." 

The silence which followed this bit of in^ 
formation from the Idiot was almost insults 
ing in its intensity. It was a silence that 
spoke, and what it said was that the Idiot's 
idiocy was colossal, and he, accepting thd 
stillness as a tribute, smiled sweetly. | 

" What do you think, Mr. Whitechoker,'! 
he said, when he thought the time was rip| 



>r renewing the conversation — "what do 
3U think of the doctrine that every day 
ill be Sunday by-and-by ?" 

" I have only to say, sir," returned the 
Jominie, pouring a little hot water into his 
lilk, which was a bit too strong for him, 
that I am a firm believer in the occurrence 
f a period when Sunday will be to all prac- 
cal purposes perpetual." 

" That is my belief, too," observed the 
ichool-master. " But it will be ruinous to 
ur good landlady to provide us with one 
f her exceptionally fine Sunday breakfasts 
very morning." 

"Thank you, Mr. Pedagog," returned 
Irs. Smithers, with a smile. " Can't I give 
ou another cup of coffee ?" 

" You may," returned the School-master, 
»ained at the lady's grammar, but too cour- 
eous to call attention to it save by the em- 
)hasis with which he spoke the word " may." 

" That's one view to take of it," said the 
^diot. " But in case we got a Sunday 
breakfast every day in the week, we, on the 
iDther hand, would get approximately what 
Are pay for. You may fill my cup too, Mrs. 
Smithers." 



"The coffee is all gone," returned t 
landlady, with a snap. 

"Then, Mary," said the Idiot, graceful] 
turning to the maid, " you may give me 
glass of ice -water. It is quite as wan 
after all, as the coffee, and not quite ; 
weak. A perpetual Sunday, though, wou 
have its drawbacks," he added, unconscioi 
of the venomous glances of the landlad 
" You, Mr. Whitechoker. for instance, wouj 
be preaching all the time, and in consequenc 
would soon break down. Then the effec 
upon our eyes from habitually reading th 
Sunday newspapers day after day would b 
extremely bad ; nor must we forget that ai 
eternity of Sundays means the eliminatioi 
' from our midst,' as the novelists say, o 
baseball, of circuses, of horse-racing, anc 
other necessities of life, unless we are' pre- 
pared to cast over the Puritanical view c 
Sunday which now prevails. It would sub 
stitute Dr. Watts for ' Annie Rooney.' W 
should lose ' Ta-ra-ra-boom-de-ay ' entire 
ly, which is a point in its favor." 

"I don't know about that," said the ge 
nial old gentleman. "I rather like tha 

I 



Did you ever hear me sing it ?" 
iked the Idiot. 

Never mind," 
^turned the ge- 
ial old gentle- 
lan, hastily. "Per- 
aps you are right, 
fter all." 

The Idiot smiled, 
,nd resumed: "Our 
hops would be 
►erpetually closed, 
.nd an enormous 
OSS to the shop- 
eepers would be 
;ure to follow. Mr. 
j^edagog's theory 
:hat we should 
lave Sunday 
breakfasts every 
lay is not tenable, 
:or the reason that 
^ith a perpetual 
day of rest agri- 
culture would die 
out, food products 
would be killed off 





S6 



by unpulled weeds ; in fact, we should g 
back to that really unfortunate period wh? 
women were without dress-makers, and man' 
chief object in life was to christen animals a 
he met them, and to abstain from apples wis 
dom, and full dress." ^^ 

"The Idiot is right," said the Biblioma- 
niac " It would not be a very good thing 
for the world if every day wer! Sunday' 
Wash-day is a necessity of life. I am will- 
ing to admit this, in the face of the fact that 
wash-day meals are invariably atrocious 
Contracts would be void, as a rule, because* 
bunday is a dies non." 

"A what.?" asked the Idiot. 

" A non-existent day in a business sense '' 
put in the School-master. 

"Of course," said the landlady, scornful- 
ly. "Any person who knows anythina 
knows that." ** 

"Then, madame," returned the Idiot ris- 
ing from his chair, and putting a handful of 
sweet crackers in his pocket-" then I must 
put ma claim for $104 from you, having 
been charged at the rate of one dollar a 
day for 104 dies 710ns in the two years I 
have been with you." 



" Indeed !" returned the lady, sharply. 
Very well. And I shall put in a counter- 
laim for the lunches you carry away from 
ireakfast every morning in your pockets." 

In that event we'll call it off, madame," 
eturned the Idiot, as with a courtly bow 
nd a pleasant smile he left the room. 

" Well, I call him ' off,' " was all the land- 
idy could say, as the other guests took 
heir departure. 

And of course the School-master agreed 
irith her. 



VII 

" Our streets appear to be as far from per- 
fect as ever," said the Bibliomaniac with a 
sigh, as he looked out through the window 
at the great pools of water that gathered in 
the basins made by the sinking of the Bel- 
gian blocks. " We'd better go back to the 
cowpaths of our fathers." ij 

" There is a great deal in what you say,""( 
observed the School -master. "The cow-- 
path has all the solidity of mother earth, , 
and none of the distracting noises we get 
from the pavements that obtain to-day. It 
is porous and absorbs the moisture. The 
Belgian pavement is leaky, and lets it run 
into our cellars. We might do far worse 
than to go back — " 

" Excuse me for having an opinion," said 
the Idiot, " but the man of enterprise can't 
afford to indulge in the luxury of the som- 
nolent cowpath. It is too quiet. It con- 
duces to sleep, which is a luxury business 



en cannot afford to indulge in too freely, 
[an must be up and doing. The prosperity 
a great city is to my mind directly due 
its noise and clatter, which effectually 
at a stop to napping, and keep men at all 
mes wide awake." 

This is a Welsh-rabbit idea, I fancy," 
lid the School-master, quietly. He had 
iverheard the Idiot's confidences, as re- 
jsaled to the genial Imbiber, regarding the 
ources of some of his ideas. 
" Not at all," returned the Idiot. " These 
leas are beef— not Welsh -rabbit. They 
re the result of much thought. If you will 
ut your mind on the subject, you will see 
or yourself that there is more in my theory 
lan there is in yours. The prosperity of a 
reality is the greater as the noise in its 
icinity increases. It is in the quiet neigh- 
orhood that man stagnates. Where do 



find great business houses ? Where do 
/e find great fortunes made ? Where do 
/e find the busy bees who make the honey 
hat enables posterity to get into Society 
nd do nothing ? Do we pick up our mill- 
ons on the cowpath .^ I guess not. Do 
\e erect our most princely business houses 



along the roads laid out by our bovine si 
ter ? I think not. Does the man who go 
from the towpath to the White House tal 
the short cut? I fancy not. He goes ov( 
the block pavement. He seeks the hon- 
of the noisy, clattering street before h 
lands in the shoes of Washington. The ma 
who sticks to the cowpath may be able t 
drink milk, but he never wears diamonds. 
" All that you say is very true, but it i 
not based on any fundamental principle 
It IS so because it happens to be so " re 
turned the School - master. "If it wen 
man's habit to have the streets laid out or 
the old cowpath principle in his cities he 
would be quite as energetic, quite as pros- 
perous, as he is now." 

"No fundamental principle involved? 
Ihere is the fundamental principle of all 
business success involved," said the Idiot 
warming up to his subject. " What is the 
basic quality in the good business man ? 
Alertness. What is 'alertness.?' Wide- 
awakeishness. In this town it is impossi- 
ble for a man to sleep after a stated hour, 
and for no other reason than that the clat- 
ter of the pavements prevents him. As a 



romoter of alertness, where is your cow- 
ath ? The cowpaths of the Catskills, and 
le all know the mountains are riddled by 
\m, didn't keep Rip Van Winkle awake, 
nd I'll wager Mr. Whitechoker here a 
ear's board that there isn't a man in his 
pngregation who can sleep a half-hour— 
jiuch less twenty years— with Broadway 
^ithin hearing distance. 
" I tell you, Mr. Pedagog," he continued, 
it is the man from the cowpath who gets 
iuncoed. It's the man from the cowpath. 
.^ho can't make a living even out of what 
le calls his ' New York Store.' It is the 
nan from the cowpath who rejoices be- 
:ause he can sell ten dollars' worth of 
.heap's -wool for five dollars, and is hap- 
)y when he goes to meeting dressed up in a 
-dollar suit of clothes that has cost him 



our- 



Aventy." 

'- Your theory, my young friend," observed 
.he School-master, "is as fragile as this 
;up "—tapping his coffee-cup. " The coun- 
tryman of whom you speak is up and doing 
long before you or I or your successful 
merchant, who has waxed great on noise 
as you put it, is awake. If the early bird 



62 



catches the worm, what becomes of yoi 
theory ?" 

" The early bird does get the bait," r 

phed the Idiot. " But he does not catc 

the fish, and I'll offer the board anoth( 

wager that the Belgian block merchar 

IS wider awake at 8 a.m., when he fin 

opens his eyes, than his suburban brothe 

who gets up at at five is all day. It's th 

extent to which the eyes are opened tha 

counts, and as for your statement that thi 

fact that prosperity and noisy streets g( 

hand in hand is true only because it hap 

pens to be so, that is an argument whicl 

may be applied to any truth in existence. ] 

am because I happen to be. not because ] 

am. You are what you are because you 

are, because if you were not, you would not 

be what you are." 

"Your logic is delightful," said the 
School-master, scornfully. 

"I strive to please," replied the Idiot. 
" But I do agree with the Bibliomaniac that 
our streets are far from perfection," he 
added. "In my opinion they should be 
laid in strata. On the ground-floor should 
be the sewers and telegraph pipes ; above 



I 



63 

tiis should be the water-mains; then a 
lyer for trucks ; then a broad stratum for 
arriages, above which should be a prome- 
lade for pedestrians. The promenade for 
>edestrians should be divided into four sec- 
ions— one for persons of leisure, one for 
hose in a hurry, one for peddlers, and one 
or beggars." 

'Highly original," said the Bibliomaniac. 

' And so cheap," added the School-mas- 

er. 

■■ In no part of the world," said the Idiot, 
n response to the last comment, " do we 
ret something for nothing. Of course this 
,cheme would be costly, but it would in- 
crease prosperity—" 

"Ha! ha '."laughed the School-master, 
satirically. 

" Laugh away, but you cannot gainsay 
my point. Our prosperity would increase, 
for we should not be always excavating to 
get at our pipes ; our surface cars with a 
clear track would gain for us rapid transit , 
!our truck-drivers would not be subjected to 
the temptations of stopping by the way-side 
to overturn a coupe, or to run down a pe- 
destrian ; our fine equipages would- in con- 



64 



sequence need fewer repairs ; and as f( 
the pedestrians, the beggars, if relegated i 
themselves, would be forced out of busine; 
as would also the street-peddlers. The me 
in a hurry would not be delayed by louncrer 
beggars, and peddlers, and the loun-ei 
would derive inestimable benefit from'th 
arrangement in the saving of wear and tea 
on their clothes and minds by contact witl 
the busy world." 

''It would be delightful," acceded the 
School -master, "particularly on Sundays 
when they were all loungers." 

" Yes " replied the Idiot. "It would be 
delightful then, especially in summer, when 
covered with an awning to shield prome- 
naders from the sun." 

Mr. Pedagog sighed, and the Bibliomani- 
ac wearily declining a second cup of coffee 
left the table with the Doctor, earnestly, 
discussing with that worthy gentleman thil 
causes of weakmindedness. 



VIII 

'There's a friend of mine up near River- 
iale," said the Idiot, as he unfolded his 
lapkin and let his bill flutter from it to the 
ioor, " who's tried to make a name for him- 
self in literature." 

'What's his name?" asked the Biblio- 
naniac, interested at once. 

" That's just the trouble. He hasn't made 
t yet," replied the Idiot. " He hasn't suc- 
:eeded in his courtship of the Muse, and 
Deyond himself and a few friends his name 
s utterly unknown." 

' What work has he tried ?" queried the 
School-master, pouring unadmonished two 
bortions of skimmed milk over his oat- 
neal. 

' A little of everything. First he wrote a 
lovel. It had an immense circulation, and 
fie only lost $300 on it. All of his friends 
;ook a copy — I've got one that he gave me 
— and I believe two hundred newspapers 



were fortunate enough to secure the book 
for review. His father bought two, and 
tried to obtain the balance of the edition, 
but didn't have enough money. That was 
gratifying, but gratification is more apt to,J 
deplete than to strengthen a bank account."' 

" I had not expected so extraordinarily 
wise an observation from one so unusually 
unwise," said the School-master, coldly. ; 

" Thank you," returned the Idiot. " But ' 
I think your remark is rather contradictory. 
You would naturally expect wise observa- 
tions from the unusually unwise; that is, if 
your teaching that the expression ' unusual- 
ly unwise' is but another form of the ex- 
pression 'usually wise' is correct. But, as-: 
I was saying, when the genial instructor of| 
youth interrupted me with his flattery," con- 
tinued the Idiot, " gratification is gratifying 
but not filling^, so my friend concluded that 
he had better give up novel-writing and 
try jokes. He kept at that a year, and 
managed to clear his postage-stamps. His 
jokes were good, but too classic for the 
tastes of the editors. Editors are peculiar. 
They have no respect for age — particularly 
in the matter of jests. Some of my friend's 



1 



jokes had seemed good enough for Plutarcli 
to print when he had a publisher at his 
mercy, but they didn't seem to suit the high 
and mighty products of this age who sit in 
judgment on such things in the comic-paper 
offices. So he gave up jokes." 

" Does he still know you ?" asked the 
landlady. 

" Yes, madame," observed the Idiot. 

" Then he hasn't given up all jokes," she 
retorted, with fine scorn. 

" Tee-he-hee !" laughed the School-mas- 
ter. " Pretty good, Mrs. Smithers — pretty 
good." 

" Yes," said the Idiot. " That is good, and, 
by Jove! it differs from your butter, Mrs. 
Smithers, because it's entirely fresh. It's 
good enough to print, and I don't think the 
butter is." 

"What did your friend do next.?" asked 
Mr, Whitechoker. 

" He was employed by a funeral director 
in Philadelphia to write obituary verses for, 
memorial cards." 

" And was he successful ?" 

" For a time ; but he lost his positioi 
because of an error made by a careless 



compositor in a marble - yard. He had 

written, 

" ' Here lies the hero of a hundred fights- 
Approximated he a perfect man; 
He fought for country and his country's rights, 
And in the hottest battles led the van.'" 

" Fine in sentiment and in execution !" 
observed Mr. Whitechoker. 

"Truly so," returned the Idiot. "But 
when the compositor in the marble-yard got 
it engraved on the monument, my friend 
was away, and when the army post that was 
to pay the bill received the monument, the 
quatrain read, 

" ' Here lies the hero of a hundred flights — 
Approximated he a perfect one; 
He fought his country and his country's rights, 
And in the hottest battles led the run.' " 

"Awful !" ejaculated the Minister. 

" Dreadful!" said the landlady, forgetting 
to be sarcastic. 

" What happened ?" asked the School- 
master. 

" He was bounced, of course, without a 
cent of pay, and the company failed the 



next week, so he couldn't make anything by 
suing for what they owed him." 

" Mighty hard luck," said the Biblio- 
maniac. 

" Very ; but there was one bright side to 
the case," observed the Idiot. " He man- 
aged to sell both versions of the quatrain 
afterwards for five dollars. He sold the 
original one to a religious weekly for a 
dollar, and got four dollars for the other one 
from a comic paper. Then he wrote an 
anecdote about the whole thing for a Sun- 
day newspaper, and got three dollars more 
out of it." 

"And what is your friend doing now.''" 
asked the Doctor. 

" Oh, he's making a mint of money now, 
but no name." 

"In literature.^" 

"Yes. He writes advertisements on sal- 
ary," returned the Idiot. " He is writing 
now a recommendation of tooth-powder in i 
Indian dialect." 

" Why didn't he tr}'- writing an epic .''" said 
the Bibliomaniac. 

"Because," replied the Idiot, "the one 
aim of his life has been to be original, and 



i 




' HE GAVE UP JOKES 



he couldn't reconcile that with epic po- 
etry." 

At which remark the landlady stooped 
over, and recovering the Idiot's bill from 
under the table, called the maid, and osten- 
tatiously requested her to hand it to the Id- 
iot. He, taking a cigarette from his pocket, 
thanked the maid for the attention, and roll- 
ing the slip into a taper, thoughtfully stuck 
one end of it into the alcohol light under 
the coffee-pot, and lighting the cigarette 
with it, walked nonchalantly from the room. 



IX 



" I've just been reading a book," began 
the Idiot. 

" I thought you looked rather pale," said 
the School-master, 

"Yes," returned the Idiot, cheerfully, "it 
made me feel pale. It was about the pleas- 
ures of country life ; and when I contrasted 
rural blessedness as it v/as there depicted 
with urban life as we live it, I felt as if my 
youth were being thrown away. I still feel 
as if I were wasting my sweetness on the 
desert air," 

" Why don't you move ?" queried the 
Bibliomaniac, suggestively, 

" If I were purely selfish I should do so 
at once, but I am, like my good friend Mr. 
M-^hitechoker, a slave to duty. I deem it 
my duty to stay here to keep the School- 
master fully informed in the various branch- 
es of knowledge which are day by day 
opened up, many of which seem to be so 



far beyond the reach of one of his conserv- 
ative habits ; to assist Mr. Whitechoker in 
his crusades against vice at this table and 
elsewhere; to give the Bibliomaniac the' 
benefit of my advice in regard to those pre- ' 
cious little tomes he no longer buys — to 
make life worth the living for all of you, to 
say nothing of enabling Mrs. Smithers to 
keep up the extraordinarily high standard 
of this house by means of the hard-earned 
stipend I pay to her every Monday morn- 
ing." 

"Every Monday?" queried the School- 
master. 

" Every Monday," returned the Idiot. 
" That is, of course, every Monday that I 
pay. The things one gets to eat in the 
country, the air one breathes, the utter 
freedom from restraint, the thousand and 
more things one enjoys in the suburbs that 
are not attainable here — it is these that 
make my heart yearn for the open." 

" Well, it's all rot," said the School-mas- 
ter, impatiently. " Country life is ideal 
only in books. Books do not tell of run- 
ning for trains through blinding snow- 
storms; writers do not expatiate on the 




LITTLE GARDEN OF MY OWN, WHERE I COULD RAISE 
AN OCCASIONAL CAN OF TOMATOES ' " 



delights of waking on cold winter nights 
and finding your piano and parlor furni- 
ture afloat because of bursted pipes, with 
the plumber, like Sheridan at Winchester, 
twenty miles away. They are dumb on the 
subject of the ecstasy one feels when pushing 
a twenty-pound lawn-mower up and down a 
weed patch at the end of a wearisome hot 
summer's day. They are silent — " 

" Don't get excited, Mr. Pedagog, please," 
interrupted the Idiot. " I am not contem- 
plating leaving you and Mrs. Smithers, but 
I do pine for a little garden of my own, 
where I could raise an occasional can of 
tomatoes. I dream sometimes of getting 
milk fresh from the pump, instead of twenty- 
four hours after it has been drawn, as we 
do here. In my musings it seems to me to 
be almost idyllic to have known a spring 
chicken in his infancy ; to have watched a 
hind-quarter of lamb gambolling about its 
native heath before its muscles became 
adamant, and before chopped-up celery tops 
steeped in vinegar were poured upon it in 
the hope of hypnotizing boarders into the 
belief that spring lamb and mint-sauce lay 
before them. What care I how hard it is 



to rise every morning before six in winter 
to thaw out the boiler, so 
long as the night coming 
finds me seated in the ge- 
nial glow of the gas log! 
What man is he that would 
complain of having to 
bale out his cellar ev- 
ery week, if, on the 
other hand, that cellar 
gains thereby 
a fertility that 




-'^»V^ 



keeps 
its floor 

sheeny, soft, and 
green — an interior 
tennis-court — from 
spring to spring, 
causing the glad- 
I some click of the 
i lawn - mower to be 
heard within its 
walls all through 
the still watches of 




\//' 



A HIND-QUAKTER OF LAMB 

GAMBOLLING ABOUT ITS 

NATIVE heath' " 



78 



the winter day ? I tell you, sir, it is the 
life to lead, that of our rural brother. I 
do not believe that in this whole vast city 
there is a cellar like that— an in-door gar- 
den-patch, as it were," 

" No," returned the Doctor; "and it is a 
good thing there isn't. There is enough} 
sickness in the world without bringing any i 
of your rus ideas in urbe. I've lived in the 
country, sir, and I assure you it is not whatt 
it is written up to be. Country life is mis- 
ery, melancholy, and malaria," 

" You must have struck a profitable sec- 
tion, Doctor," returned the Idiot, taking 
possession of three steaming buckwheat 
cakes to the dismay of Mr. Whitechoker, 
who was about to reach out for them him- 
self. " And I should have supposed that 
your good business sense would have re- 
strained you from leaving." 

" Then the countryman is poor — always 
poor," continued the Doctor, ignoring the 
Idiot's sarcastic comments. 

" Ah ! that accounts for it," observed the 
Idiot. " I see why you did not stay ; for what 
shall it profit a man to save a patient if prac- 
tice, like virtue, is to be its own reward .^" 



* Your suggestion, sir," retorted the Doc- 
or, " betrays an unhealthy frame of mind." 
"That's all right. Doctor," returned the 
diot ; " but please do not diagnose the 
i-ase any further. I can't afford an expert 
bpinion as to my mental condition. But to 
heturn to our subject : you two gentlemen 
iippear to have had unhappy experiences 
n country life— quite different from those 
Df a friend of mine who owns a farm. He 
ioesn't have to run for trains ; he is inde- 
pendent of plumbers, because the only pipes 
in his house are for smoking purposes. 
The farm produces corn enough to keep 
his family supplied all the year round and 
to sell a balance at a profit. Oats and wheat 
are harvested to an extent which keeps the 
cattle and declares dividends besides. He 
never suffers from the cold or heat. He is 
never afraid of losing his house or barns by 
fire, because the whole fire department of 
the neighboring village is, to a man, in love 
with the house-keeper's daughter, and is al- 
ways on hand in force. The chickens are 
! the envy and pride of the county, and there 
are so many of them that they have to take 
turns in going to roost. The pigs are the 



8o 



most intelligent of their kind, and are sc 
happy they never grunt. In fact, every- 
thing is lovely and cheap, the only thing 
that hangs high being the goose." 




"'the gladsome click of the lawn-mower'" 

" Quite an ideal, no doubt," put in the 
School-master, scornfully. " I suppose his 
is one of those model farms with steam- 
pipes under the walks to melt the snow in 



Inter, and of course there is a vein of coal 
rowing right up into his furnace ready to 
e lit." 

Yes," observed the Bibliomaniac; "and 

doubt the chickens lay eggs in every 
tyle — poached, fried, scrambled, and boiled. 
he weeds in the garden grow so fast, I 

fliippose, that they pull themselves up by 
he roots ; and if there is anything left un- 
one at the end of the day I presume tramps 

1 dress suits, and courtly in manner, spring 
ut of the ground and finish up for him." 

*' I'll bet he's not on good terms with his 
eighbors if he has everything you speak of 
1 such perfection. These farmers get 
{rightfully jealous of each other," asserted 
he Doctor, with a positiveness that seemed 
o be born of experience. 

" He never quarrelled with one of them 
n his life," returned the Idiot. " He doesn't 
mow them well enough to quarrel with 
hem ; in fact, 1 doubt if he ever sees them 
Lt all. He's very exclusive." 

"Of course he is a born farmer to get 
everything the way he has it," suggested 
Mrs. Smithers. 

" No, he isn't. He's a broker," said the 

6 



L 



82 



Idiot, " and a very successful one. I so 
him on the street every day." 

" Does he employ a man to run the farm }'■ 
asked the Clergyman. 

" No," returned the Idiot, " he has to( 
much sense and too few dollars to do am 
such foolish thing as that." 

"It must be one of those self-winding' 
stock farms," put in the School -master 
scornfully. "But I don't see how he car! 
be a successful broker and make money of, 
his farm at the same time. Your state- 
ments do not agree, either. You said he| 
never had to run for trains." 

" Well, he never has," returned the Idiot, 
calmly. " He never goes near his farm. He 
doesn't have to. It's leased to the husband 
of the house-keeper whose daughter has a' 
crush on the fire department. He takes 
his pay in produce, and gets more than if^ 
he took it in cash on the basis of the New 
York vegetable market." 

"' Then you have got us into an argument 
about country life that ends— " began the 
School-master, indignantly. 

" That ends where it leaves off," retorted 
the Idiot, departing with a smile on his lips. 



83 



' He's an Idiot from Idaho," asserted the 
BibHomaniac. 

♦Yes; but I'm afraid idiocy is a Httle 
contagious," observed the Doctor, with a 
grin and sidelong glance at the School- 
master. 






" Good -MORNING, gentlemen," said the' 
Idiot, as he seated himself at the breakfast- 
table and glanced over his mail, 

" Good-morning yourself," returned the 
Poet. "You have an unusually large num 
ber of letters this morning. All checks, 
hope ?" 

"Yes," replied the Idiot. "All checks 
of one kind or another. Mostly checks 
on ambition — otherwise, rejections from my 
friends the editors." 

" You don't mean to say that you write 
for the papers.''" put in the School-master, 
with an incredulous smile. 

"I try to," returned the Idiot, meekly. 
" If the papers don't take 'em, I find them 
useful in curing my genial friend who im- 
bibes of insomnia." 

"What do you write — advertisements.'*" 
queried the Bibliomaniac. 

" No. Advertisement writing is an art to 



8s 



which I dare not aspire. It's too great a 
tax on the brain," replied the Idiot. 

" Tax on what ?" asked the Doctor. He 
was going to squelch the Idiot. 

" The brain," returned the latter, not 
ready to be squelched. " It's a little thing 
people use to think with, Doctor. I'd ad- 
vise you to get one." Then he added, " I 
write poems and foreign letters mostly." 

" I did not know that you had ever been 
abroad," said the clergyman. 




53 



YOU DON T MEAN TO SAY THAT YOU WRITE FOR THE 
PAPERS?'" 



" I never have," returned the Idiot. 

" Then how, may I ask," said Mr. White- 
choker, severely, " how can you write for- 
eign letters ?" 

" With my stub pen, of course," replied 
the Idiot. " How did you suppose — with an 
oyster-knife?" 

The clergyman sighed. 

" I should like to hear some of your po- 
ems," said the Poet. 

" Very well," returned the Idiot. " Here's 
one that has just returned from the Be?tgal 
Monthly. It's about a writer who died some 
years ago. Shakespeare's his name. You've 
heard of Shakespeare, haven't you, Mr. Ped- 
agog.^" he added. 

Then, as there was no answer, he read the 
verse, which was as follows : 

SETTLED. 

Yes ! Shakespeare wrote the plays — 'tis clear to me. 

Lord Bacon's claim's condemned before the bar. 
He'd not have penned, "what fools these mortals be!" 

But — more correct — "what fools these mortals are!" 

" That's not bad," said the Poet. 
" Thanks," returned the Idiot. " I wish 
you were an editor. I wrote that last spring, 



and it has been coming back to me at the 
rate of once a week ever since." 

" It is too short," said the Bibliomaniac. 

" It's an epigram," said the Idiot. " How 
many yards long do you think epigrams 
should be ?" 

The Bibliomaniac scorned to reply. 

" I agree with the Bibliomaniac," said the 
School-master. "It is too short. People 
want greater quantity." 

" Well, here is quantity for you," said the 
Idiot. " Quantity as she is not wanted by 
nine comic papers I wot of. This poem is 
called : 

'"THE TURNING OF THE WORM. 

" ' How hard my fate perhaps you'll gather in, 
My dearest reader, when I tell you that 
I entered into this fair world a twin — 
The one was spare enough, the other fat. 

" * I was, of course, the lean one of the two. 
The homelier as well, and consequently 
In ecstasy o'er Jim my parents flew. 
And good of me was spoken accident'ly. 

" * As boys we went to school, and Jim, of course. 
Was e'er his teacher's favorite, and ranked 
Among the lads renowned for moral force. 

Whilst I was every day right soundly spanked. 



Jim had an angel face, but there he stopped. 

I never knew a lad who'd sin so oft 
And look so like a branch of heaven lopped 

From off the parent trmik that grows aloft. 

I seemed an imp— indeed 'twas often said 

That I resembled much Beelzebub. 
My face was freckled and my hair was red— 

The kind of looking boy that men call scrub. 

Kind deeds, however, were my constant thought ; 

In everything I did the best I could; 
I said my prayers thrice daily, and I sought 

In all my ways to do the right and good. 

On Saturdays I'd do my Monday's sums. 

While Jim would spend the day in search of fun ; 

He'd sneak away and steal the neighbors' plums, 
And, strange to say, to earth was never run. 

Whilst I, when study-time was haply through. 

Would seek my brother in the neighbor's orchard; 

Would find the neighbor there with anger blue, 
And as the thieving culprit would be tortured. 

The sums I'd done he'd steal, this lad forsaken, 
Then change my work, so that a paltry four 

Would be my mark, whilst he had overtaken 
The maximum and all the prizes bore. 

In later years we loved the self-same maid ; 

We sent her little presents, sweets, bouquets, 
For which, alas ! 'twas I that always paid ; 

And Jim the maid now honors and obeys. 

We entered politics — in different roles. 
And for a minor office each did run. 



'Twas I was left — left badly at the polls, 
Because of fishy things that Jim had done. 

' When Jim went into business and failed, 

I signed his notes and freed him from the strife 
Which bankruptcy and ruin hath entailed 
On them that lead a queer financial life. 

Then, penniless, I learned that Jim had set 
Aside before his failure — hard to tell!-- 

A half a million dollars on his pet — 
His Mrs. Jim — the former lovely Nell. 

That wearied me of Jim. It may be right 
For one to bear another's cross, but I 

Quite fail to see it in its proper light. 

If that's the rule man should be guided by. 

And since a fate perverse has had the wit 
To mix us up so that the one's deserts 

Upon the shoulders of the other sit, 
No matter how the other one it hurts, 

I am resolved to take some mortal's life ; 

Just when, or where, or how, I do not reck, 
So long as law will end this horrid strife 

And twist my dear twin brother's sinful neck.'" 



" There," said the Idiot, putting down the 
manuscript. " How's that ?" 

" I don't like it," said Mr. Whitechoker. 
" It is immoral and vindictive. You should 
accept the hardships of life, no matter how^ 



unjust. The conclusion of your poem ho 
rifles me, sir. I — " 

" Have you tried your hand at dialect po. 
try ?" asked the Doctor. 

" Yes ; once," said the Idiot. " I sent it l 
the Grea^ Western Weekly. Oh yes. Hei 
it is. Sent back with thanks. It's an 0( 
tette written in cigar-box dialect." 

" In wh-a-at .?" asked the Poet. 

" Cigar-box dialect. Here it is : 

" ' O Manuel garcia alonzo, 

Colorado especial H. Clay, 
Invincible flora alphonzo, 

Cigarette panatella el rey, 
Victoria Reina selectas — 

O twofer madura grand^ — 
O conchas oscuro perfectas, 

You drive all my sorrows away.'" 

" Ingenious, but vicious," said the School 
master, who does not smoke. 

" Again thanks. How is this for a son 
net y said the Idiot : 

" ' When to the sessions of sweet silent thought 
I summon up remembrance of things past, 
I sigh the lack of many a thing I sought. 
And with old woes new wail my dear time's waste : 
Then can I drown an eye, unused to flow. 
For precious friends hid in death's dateless night, 



And weep afresh love's long since cancel'd woe, 
And moan the expense of many a vanish'd sight : 
Then can I grieve at grievances foregone, 
And heavily from woe to woe tell o'er 
The sad account of fore-bemoaned moan, 
' Which I now pay as if not paid- before. 
But if the while I think of thee, dear friend ! 
All losses are restored and sorrows end.' " 

" It is bosh !" said the School-master. 

The Poet smiled quietly. 

" Perfect bosh !" repeated the School-mas- 
fcr. " And only shows how in weak hands 
beautiful a thing as the sonnet can be 
;iade ridiculous." 
• "What's wrong with it ?" asked the Idiot. 

" It doesn't contain any thought— or if it 

oes, no one can tell what the thought is. 
j^'our rhymes are atrocious. Your phrase- 
ology is ridiculous. The whole thing is bad. 
ifou'll never get anybody to print it." 

I do not intend to try," said the Idiot, 
neekly. 

*' You are wise," said the School-master, 

to take my advice for once." 
" No, it is not your advice that restrains 
he," said the Idiot, dryly. 'It is the 
act that this sonnet has already been 
Drinted." 



"In the name of Letters, where?" crie 
the School-master. 

" In the collected works of William Shak( 
speare," replied the Idiot, quietly. 

The Poet laughed ; Mrs. Smithers's ey( 
filled with tears ; and the School-master fc 
once had absolutely nothing to say. 



XI 



; " Do you believe, Mr. Whitechoker," said 
the Idiot, taking his place at the table, and 
holding his plate up to the light, apparently 
to see whether or not it was immaculate, 
whereat the landlady sniffed contemptu- 
ously — "do you believe that the love of 
money is the root of all evil ?" 

" I have always been of that impression," 
returned Mr. Whitechoker, pleasantly. " In 
fact, I am sure of it," he added. " There is 
no evil thing in this world, sir, that cannot 
be traced back to a point where greed is 
found to be its main-spring and the source 
I of its strength." 

i " Then how do you reconcile this with 
the scriptural story of the forbidden fruit.? 
Do you think the apples referred to were 
figures of speech, the true import of which 
was that Adam and Eve had their eyes on 
the original surplus.?" 

" Well, of course, there you begin to— 



96 



ah— you seem to me to be going back t( 
the — er— the — ah — " 

"Original root of all evil," prompted th( 
Idiot, calmly. 

" Precisely," returned Mr. Whitechoker 
with a sigh of relief. "Mrs. Smithers, li 
think I'll have a dash of hot- water in mj; 
coffee this morning." Then, with a nervous 
glance towards the Idiot, he added, address- 
ing the Bibliomaniac, " I think it looks like 
rain." 

"Referring to the coffee, Mr. White- 
choker.?" queried the Idiot, not disposed to 
let go of his victim quite so easily. 

"Ah — I don't quite follow you," replied 
the Minister, with some annoyance. 

" You said something looked like rain, 
and I asked you if the thing you referred to 
was the coffee, for I was disposed to agree 
with you," said the Idiot. 

" I am sure," put in Mrs. Smithers, "that 
a gentleman of Mr. Whitechoker's refine- 
ment would not make any such insinuation, 
sir. He is not the man to quarrel with what 
is set before him." 

" I ask your pardon, madam," returned 
the Idiot, politely. " I hope that I am not 



I 



98 



the man to quarrel with my food, eithe 
Indeed, I make it a rule to avoid unpleas| 
antness of all sorts, particularly with th 
weak, under which category we find you 
cofifee, I simply wish to know to what M 
Whitechoker refers when he says 'it look 
like rain.' " 

"I mean, of course," said the Ministeri 
with as much calmness as he could comJ 
mand— and that was not much — " I mear| 
the day. The day looks as if it might b( ' 
rainy." 

"Any one with a modicum of brain knowf-' 
what you meant, Mr. Whitechoker," volun-ii 
teered the School-master. ; 

"Certainly," observed the Idiot, scraping| 
the butter from his toast; "but to thosef 
who have more than a modicum of brainsi 
my reverend friend's remark was not en-^ 
tirely clear. If I am talking of cotton, and 
a gentleman chooses to state that it looks 
like snow, I know exactly what he means.^ 
He doesn't mean that the day looks like 
snow, however ; he refers to the cotton. 
Mr. Whitechoker, talking about cofifee, 
chooses to state that it looks like rain, 
which it undoubtedly does. I, realizing 



;hat, as Mrs. Smithers says, it is not the 
gentleman's habit to attack too violently 
'he food which is set before him, manifest 
some surprise, and, giving the gentleman 
the benefit of the doubt, afford him an op- 
portunity to set himself right." 

"Change the subject," said the Biblio- 
maniac, curtly. 

" With pleasure," answered the Idiot, fill- 
ing his glass with cream. "We'll change 
the subject, or the object, or anything you 
choose. We'll have another breakfast, or 
! another variety of biscuits frappe — ^ny- 
" thing, in short, to keep peace at the table. 
Tell me, Mr. Pedagog," he added, " is the 
use of the word ' it,' in the sentence ' it looks 
like rain,' perfectly correct?" 

" I don't know why it is not," returned 
the School-master, uneasily. He was not 
at all desirous of parleying with the Idiot. 

"And is it correct to suppose that 'it' 
refers to the day— is the day supposed to 
look like rain ?— or do we simply use ' it 'to 
express a condition which confronts us ?" 
" It refers to the latter, of course." 
" Then the full text of Mr. Whitechoker's 
remark is, I suppose, that ' the rainy condi- 



tion of the atmosphere which confronts us| 
looks Hke rain ?' " 

" Oh. I suppose so," sighed the School- 
master, wearily. 

" Rather an unnecessary sort of statement 
that !" continued the Idiot. " It's some- 
thing like asserting that a man looks like 
himself, or, as in the case of a child's 
primer — 

" 'See the cat.?' 

" 'Yes, I see the cat.' 

" ' What is the cat ?" 

" ' The cat is a cat. Scat cat !' " 

At this even Mrs. Smithers smiled. 

" I don't agree with Mr. Pedagog," put in 
the Bibliomaniac, after a pause. 

Here the School - master shook his head 
warningly at the Bibliomaniac, as if to indi- 
cate that he was not in good form. 

" So I observe," remarked the Idiot. 
"You have upset him completely. See how 
Mr. Pedagog trembles?" he added, address-i 
ing the genial gentleman who occasionally! 
imbibed. 

" I don't mean that way," sneered the 
Bibliomaniac, bound to set Mr. Whitechoker 
straight. " I mean that the word ' it,' as em-: 



I 




"'l BELIEVE you'd BLOW OUT THE GAS IN YOUR 

BED-ROOM ' " 



ployed in that sentence, stands for day. Thi 
day looks like rain," 

"Did you ever see a day?" queried th( 
Idiot. 

" Certainly I have," returned the Biblio 
maniac. 

" What does it look like ?" was the calml] 
put question. 

The Bibliomaniac's impatience was here 
almost too great for safety, and the mannei 
in which his face colored aroused consid- 
erable interest in the breast of the Doctor, 
who was a good deal of a specialist in 
apoplexy. 

" Was it a whole day you saw, or only a' 
half-day }" persisted the Idiot. 

" You may think you are very funny, 
retorted the Bibliomaniac. " I think you 
are*—" 

"Now don't get angry," returned the 
Idiot. " There are two or three things 
I do not know, and I'm anxious to learn. 
I'd like to know how a day looks to one 
to whom it is a visible object. If it is visi- 
ble, is it tangible.? and, if so, how does it feel.?" 
" The visible is always tangible," asserted 
the School-master, recklessly. 



i03 



" How about a red - hot stove, or mani- 
fest indignation, or a view from a mountain- 
top, or, as in the case of the young man in 
the novel who ' suddenly waked,' and, ' look- 
ing anxiously about him, saw no one ?' " re- 
turned the Idiot, imperturbably. 

" Tut !" ejaculated the Bibliomaniac. " If 
I had brains like yours, I'd blow them out." 

"Yes, I think you would," observed the 
Idiot, folding up his napkin. " You're just 
the man to do a thing like that. I believe 
you'd blow out the gas in your bedroom 
if there wasn't a sign over it requesting 
you not to." And filling his match-box 
from the landlady's mantel supply, the Idiot 
hurried from the room, and soon after left 
the house. 



XII 

"If my father hadn't met with reverses — " 
the Idiot began. 

" Did you really have a father ?" interrupt- 
ed the School-master. " I thought you were 
one of these self-made Idiots. How terri- 
ble it must be for a man to think that he is 
responsible for you !" 

"Yes," rejoined the Idiot; "my father 
finds it rather hard to stand up under his 
responsibility for me ; but he is a brave old 
gentleman, and he manages to bear the bur- 
den very well with the aid of my mother — 
for I have a mother, too, Mr. Pedagog. A 
womanly mother she is, too, with all the nat- 
ural follies, such as fondness for and belief in 
her boy. Why, it would soften your heart 
to see how she looks on me. She thinks I 
am the most everlastingly brilliant man she 
ever knew — excepting father, of course, who 
has always been a hero of heroes in her eyes, 
because he never rails at misfortune, never 



spoke an unkind word to her in his life, anc 
just lives gently along and waiting for th( 
end of all things." 

" Do you think it is right in you to de- 
ceive your mother in this way— making hei 
think you a young Napoleon of intelleci 
when you know you are an Idiot ?" observec 
the Bibliomaniac, with a twinkle in his eye 

" Why certainly I do," returned the Idiot 
calmly. " It's my place to make the old 
folks happy if I can ; and if thinking me nine- 
teen different kinds of a genius is going tc 
fill my mother's heart with happiness, I'm 
going to let her think it. What's the use 
of destroying other people's idols even if we 
do know them to be hollow mockeries ? Do 
you think you do a praiseworthy act, for in- 
stance, when you kick over the heathen's 
stone gods and leave him without any at all ? 
You may not have noticed it, but I have- 
that it is easier to pull down an idol than it 
is to rear an ideal. I have had idols shat- 
tered myself, and I haven't found that the 
pedestals they used to occupy have been 
rented since. They are there yet and emp- 
ty—standing as monuments to what once 
seemed good to me — and I'm no happier nor 



ino better for being disillusioned. So it is 
with my- mother. I let her go on and think 
me perfect. It does her good, and it does 
me good because it makes me try to live 
up to that idea of hers as to what I am. If 
she had the same opinion of me that vv^e all 
have she'd be the most miserable woman 
in the world." 

" We don't all think so badly of you," said 
the Doctor, rather softened by the Idiot's 
remarks. 

"No," put in the Bibliomaniac. "You are 
all right. You breathe normally, and you 
have nice blue eyes. You are graceful and 
pleasant to look upon, and if you'd been 
born dumb we'd esteem you very highly. It 
is only your manners and your theories that 
we don't like ; but even in these we are dis- 
posed to believe that you are a well-mean- 
ing child." 

" That is precisely the way to put it," as- 
sented the School-master. " You are harm- 
less even when most annoying. For my own 
part, I think the most objectionable feature 
about you is that you suffer from that un- 
fortunately not uncommon malady, extreme 
youth. You are young for your age, and if 



io8 



you only wouldn't talk, I think we should 
get on famously together." 

" You overwhelm me with your compli- 
ments," said the Idiot. " I am sorry I am 
so young, but I cannot be brought to believe 
that that is my own fault. One must live to 
attain age, and how the deuce can one livel 
when one boards ?" ' 

As no one ventured to reply to this ques- 
tion, the force of which very evidently, how- 
ever, was fully appreciated by Mrs. Smithers, 
the Idiot continued : 

"Youth is thrust upon us in our infancy, 
and must be endured until such a time as 
Fate permits us to account ourselves cured. 
It swoops down upon us when we have 
neither the strength nor the brains to resent 
it. Of course there are some superior per- 
sons in this world who never were young. 
Mr. Pedagog, I doubt not, was ushered into 
this world with all three sets of teeth cut, 
and not wailing as most infants are, but dis- 
cussing the most abstruse philosophical 
problems. His fairy stories were told him, 
if ever, in words of ten syllables ; and his fa- 
ther's first remark to him was doubtless an 
inquiry as to his opinion on the subject of 



I 





I THOUGHT MY FATHER A MEAN-SPIRITED ASSASSIN 



Latin and Greek in our colleges. It's all 
right to be this kind of a baby if you like 
that sort of thing. For my part, I rejoice 
to think that there was once a day when I 
thought my father a mean-spirited assassin, 
because he wouldn't tie a string to the moon, 
and let me make it rise and set as suited 
my sweet will. Babies of Mr. Pedagog's 
sort are fortunately like angel's visits, few 
and far between. In spite of his stand in 
the matter, though, I can't help thinking 
there was a great deal of truth in a rhyme 
a friend of mine got off on Youth, It fits 
the case. He said : 

" 'Youth is a state of being we attain 

In early years; to some 'tis but a crime— 
And, like the mumps, most aged men complain, 
It can't be caught, alas I a second time.'" 

" Your rhymes are interesting, and your 
reasoning, as usual, is faulty," said the 
School-master. " I passed a very pleasant 
childhood, though it was a childhood devot- 
ed, as you have insinuated, to serious rather 
than to flippant pursuits. I wasn't particu- : 
larly fond of tag and hide-and-seek, nor do 
I think that even as an infant I ever cried 
for the moon." 



" It would have expanded your chest if 
^'011 had, Mr. Pedagog," observed the Idiot, 
quietly- 

" So it would, but I never found myself 
short-winded, sir," retorted the School-mas- 
ter, with some acerbity. 

"That is evident; but go on," said the 
Idiot. " You never passed a childish youth 
nor a youthful childhood, and therefore 
Iwhat?" 

" Therefore, in my present condition, I am 
normally contented. I have no youthful fol- 
ilies to look back upon, no indiscretions to 
regret ; I never knowingly told a lie, and — " 

" All of which proves that you never were 
young," put in the Idiot ; " and you will ex- 
icuse me if I say it, but my father is the 
i model for me rather than so exalted a per- 
I sonage as yourself. He is still young, though 
I turned seventy, and I don't believe on his 
'own account there ever was a boy who 
played hookey more, who prevaricated of- 
tener, who purloined others' fruits with 
greater frequency than he. He was guilty 
of every crime in the calendar of youth ; and 
if there is one thing that delights him more 
than another, it is to sit on a winter's night 



before the crackling log and tell us yarn: 
about his youthful follies and his boyhooc 
indiscretions." 

"But is he normally a happy man?' 
queried the School-master. 
" No." 
" Ah !" 

" No. He's an ^^normally happy man, be- 
cause he's got his follies and indiscretionSj 
to look back upon and not forward to." 
" Ahem !" said Mrs. Smithers. 
"Dear me!" ejaculated Mr. Whitechoker. 
Mr. Pedagog said nothing, and the break- 
fast-room was soon deserted. 



XIIT 

There was an air of suppressed excite- 
ment about Mrs. Smithers and Mr. Pedagog 
as they sat down to breakfast. Something 
had happened, but just what that something 
was no one as yet knew, although the ge- 
nial old gentleman had a sort of notion as 
to what it was. 

" Pedagog has been good-natured enough 
for an engaged man for nearly a week now," 
he whispered to the Idiot, who had asked 
him what he supposed was up, " and I have 
a half idea that Mrs. S. has at last brought 
him to the point of proposing." 

" It's the other way, I imagine," returned 
the Idiot. 

" You don't really think she has rejected 
him, do you ?" queried the genial old gen- 
tleman. 

" Oh no ; not by a great deal. I mean 
that I think it very likely that he has brought 
her to the point. This is leap-year, you 
4<now," said the Idiot. 



" Well, if I were a betting man, which I 
haven't been since night before last, I'd lay 
you a wager that they're engaged," said the 
old gentleman. 

" I'm glad you've given up betting," re- 
joined the Idiot, "because I'm sure I'd take 
the bet if you offered it — and then I believe 
I'd lose." 

" We are to have Philadelphia spring 
chickens this morning, gentlemen," said 
Mrs. Smithers, beaming upon all at the ta- 
ble. " It's a special treat." 

" Which we all appreciate, my dear Mrs. 
Smithers," observed the Idiot, with a cour- 
teous bow to his landlady. " And, by the 
way, why is it that Philadelphia spring 
chickens do not appear until autumn, do you 
suppose ? Is it because Philadelphia spring 
doesn't come around until it is autumn ev- 
erywhere else.?" 

" No, I think not," said the Doctor. " I 
think it is because Philadelphia spring 
chickens are not sufficiently hardened to be 
able to stand the strain of exportation much 
before September, or else Philadelphia peo- 
ple do not get so sated with such delicacies 
as to permit any of the crop to go into other 



W*i 




MRS. S. BROUGHT HIM TO THE POINT OF PROPOSING 



than Philadelphia markets before that pe- 
riod. For my part, I simply love them," 

"So do I," said the Idiot; "and if Mrs. 
Smithers will pardon me for expressing a 
preference for any especial part of the piece 
de resistance, I will state to her that if, in 
helping me, she will give me two drum- 
sticks, a pair of second joints, and plenty of 
the white meat, I shall be very happy." 

"You ought to have said so yesterday," 
said the School-master, with a surprisingly 
genial laugh. "Then Mrs. Smithers could 
have prepared an individual chicken for 
you." 

" That would be too much," returned the 
Idiot, " and I should really hesitate to eat 
too much spring chicken. I never did it in 
my life, and don't know what the effect 
would be. Would it be harmful. Doctor ?" 

" I really do not know how it would be,' 
answered the Doctor. " In all my wide ex- 
perience I have never found a case of the 
kind." 

" It's very rarely that one gets too much 
spring chicken," said Mr. Whitechoker. " 1 
haven't had any experience with patients 
as my friend the Doctor has; but I have 



ived in many boarding-houses, and I have 
never yet Icnown of any one even getting 
enough." 

" Well, perhaps we shall have all we want 
this morning," said Mrs. Smithers. " I hope 
so, at any rate, for I wish this day to be a 
memorable one in our house. Mr. Pedagog 
has something to tell you. John, will you 
announce it now ?" 

" Did you hear that.?" whispered the Idiot. 
" She called him 'John.'"' 

"Yes," said the genial old gentleman. 
'• I didn't know Pedagog had a first name 
before." 

" Certainly, my dear — that is, my very dear 
Mrs. Smithers," stammered the School-mas- 
ter, getting red in the face. " The fact is, 
gentlemen — ahem ! — I — er — we — er — that is, 
of course — er — Mrs. Smithers has er — ahem ! 
— Mrs. Smithers has asked me to be her — 
I — er — I should say I have asked Mrs. 
Smithers to be my husb — my wife, and — 
er — she — " 

" Hoorah !" cried the Idiot, jumping up 
from the table and grasping Mr. Pedagog 
by the hand. " Hoorah ! You've got in 
ahead of us, old man, but we are just as 



glad when we think of your good-fortune. 
Your gain may be our loss — but what of 
that where the happiness of our dear land- 
lady is at stake?" 

Mrs. Smithers glanced coyly at the Idiot 
and smiled. 

" Thank you," said the School-master. 

" You are welcome," said the Idiot. " Mrs. 
Smithers, you will also permit me to felici- 
tate you upon this happy event. I, who 
have so often differed with Mr. Pedagog 
upon matters of human knowledge, am 
forced to admit that upon this occasion he 
has shown such eminently good sense that 
you are fortunate, indeed, to have won him." 

" Again I thank you," said the School- 
master. " You are a very sensible person 
yourself, my dear Idiot ; perhaps my fail- 
ure to appreciate you at times in the past 
has been due to your brilliant qualities, 
which have so dazzled me that I have been 
unable to see you as you really are." 

" Here are the chickens," said Mrs. Smith- 
ers. 

"Ah!" ejaculated the Idiot. "What 
lucky fellows we are, to be sure ! I hope, 
Mrs. Smithers, now that Mr. Pedagog has 




HOORAH !' CRIED THE IDIOT, GRASPING MR. PEDAGOG BY 
THE HAND " 



cut us all out, you will at least be a sister 
to the rest of us, and let us live at home." 

" There is to be no change," said Mrs. 
Smithers — "at least, I hope not, except that 
Mr. Pedagog will take a more active part 
in the management of our home." 

" I don't envy him that," said the Idiot. 
" We shall be severe critics, and it will be 
hard work for him to manage affairs bet- 
ter than you did, Mrs. Smithers." 

" Mary, get me a larger cup for the Idiot's 
coffee," said Mrs. Smithers. 

" Let's all retire from business," suggested 
the Idiot, after the other guests had ex- 
pressed their satisfaction with the turn affairs 
had taken. " Let's retire from business, and 
change the Smithers Home for Boarders 
into an Educational Institution." 

" For what purpose ?" queried the Biblio- 
maniac. 

" Everything is so lovely now," explained 
the Idiot, "that I feel as though I never 
wanted to leave the house again, even to 
win a fortune. If we turn it into a col- 
lege and instruct youth, we need never go 
outside the front door excepting for pleas- 
ure." 



" Where will the money and the in- 
structors come from ?" asked Mr. White- 
choker. 

" Money? From pupils ; and after we get 
going maybe somebody will endow us. As 
for instructors, I think we know enough to 
be instructors ourselves," replied the Idiot. 
" For instance : Pedagog's University. John 
Pedagog, President ; Alonzo B. White- 
choker, Chaplain ; Mrs. Smithers-Pedagog, 
Matron. For Professor of Belles - lettres, 
the Bibliomaniac, assisted by the Poet ; 
Medical Lectures by Dr. Capsule ; Chem- 
istry taught by our genial friend who occa- 
sionally imbibes ; Chair in General Infor- 
mation, your humble servant. Why, we 
would be overrun with pupils and money 
in less than a year." 

"A very good idea," returned Mr. Peda- 
gog. " I have often thought that a nice lit- 
tle school could be started here to advan- 
tage, though I must confess that I had 
different ideas on the subject of the in- 
structors. You, my dear Idiot, would be a 
great deal more useful as a Professor Emer- 
itus." 

" Hm !" said the Idiot. " It sounds mighty 



well — I've no doubt I should like it. What 
is a Professor Emeritus, Mr. Pedagog ?" 

" He is a professor who is paid a salary for 
doing nothing." 

The whole table joined in a laugh, thei 
Idiot included. 

" By Jove ! Mr. Pedagog," he said, as soon 
as he could speak, " you are just dead right 
about that. That's the place of places for 
me. Salary and nothing to do ! Oh, how 
I'd love it !" 

The rest of the breakfast was eaten in 
silence. The spring chickens were too good 
and too plentiful to admit of much waste of 
time in conversation. At the conclusion of 
the meal the Idiot rose from the table, and, 
after again congratulating Mr. Pedagog and 
his fiancee, announced that he was going to 
see his employer. 

"On Sunday.?" queried Mrs. Smithers. 

" Yes ; I want him to write me a recom- 
mendation as a man who can do nothing 
beautifully." 

" And why, pray ?" asked Mr. Pedagog. 

" I'm going to apply to the Trustees of i 
Columbia College the first thing to-morrow 
morning for an Emeritus Professorship, for, 



if anybody can do nothing and draw money 
for it gracefully I'm the man. Wall Street 
is too wearing on my nerves," he replied. 

And in a moment he was gone. 

" I like him," said Mrs. Smithers. 

" So do I," said Mr. Pedagog. He isn't 
half the idiot he thinks he is." 



THE END 



i 



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